Prologue

A hasty marriage appears to be in the cards for Miss Constance Willoughby, the reclusive eldest daughter of the equally reclusive viscount, Lord Smithton. She’s landed a proper gent in the Earl of Edgerly, who is seeking devoted companionship from his third countess. Of course, rumors swirl around the mysterious Willoughby family, as they have for decades. Is the earl taking a greater risk than he would on a hand of faro by asking for Miss Willoughby’s hand?

This author wonders what mischief a country girl could have gotten into in the wiles of Northumberland to necessitate such a speedy union.

~The City Tattler

A brutally cold winter day

Bamburgh, Northumberland 1815

C ece Willoughby had consumed a lifetime of Crispin Sinclair’s sins. Three, to be exact.

When he didn’t have many to squander.

Vicar Smith said a man only possessed a few, and he should spread them over the duration. Women were afforded none, according to the cleric, so his little minx was in even worse shape than Crispin.

A concern that kept him up at night.

Nonetheless, the sin-spendings had been glorious—even if he hadn’t known what he was doing.

Not once had he been certain he’d handled Cece as a man blind in love ought. In the hayloft, in the luxurious barouche in his father’s stable, or that last magnificent episode in her bed, their bodies tangled in sheets warmed with blissful discovery. They’d bumbled and fiddled, tearing clothing, laughing, exploring—then gasping, moaning, lost . He’d tried to keep his wits about him, but the experiences had been bewildering and splendid. Miraculous in ways he’d not imagined tupping could be.

Touching Cece had gone beyond anything his youthful mind had seen fit to conjure.

And he’d spent years conjuring.

The encounters had moved him more than he could express, and in a manner men never whispered about over billiards and whisky. They boasted of spilling their seed, shoving aside the chit, and falling promptly to sleep. They bragged of desire checked and lust fulfilled.

Nothing, truly, was ever spoken about the chit’s yearnings. Of her desire, her lust. Which he’d admit matched his in intensity, or so it seemed.

In the end, no one spoke of love.

Which left a young man wondering how to manage feeling it.

Cece entranced Crispin, leaving him unguarded to his bones and wishing for more. Of her oft-dogged views, her countless felonious pursuits, her wit, her cunning, her everything . Sitting quietly in a salon and watching her stitch would have satisfied should she have been a girl intent upon such inane pursuits. But she wasn’t such a girl. She fought for what she wanted—him—and against his better judgment that they wait, he’d caved in the way only a nineteen-year-old passionate fool could.

Regrettably, they’d been careless. And now, they were parted.

His heart gave a thump at the realization of how distanced they were. He was literally watching her life spin away without him.

Crispin scrubbed his gloved knuckle across the icy pane and searched the interior of her mother’s garish parlor, the mullioned windows giving him but a watery half view of the proceedings. Cece’s head bowed, her slender body curved around the teacup she grasped like a lifeline with both hands, her slipper tapping a rhythm only he knew the true cadence of. She was surrounded with no way out. Her parents, the vicar, and an earl who wanted to make her his wife circling her while she shrank away from them. She needed him—when he’d been advised by her father, rather compellingly, to never speak to her again. A lowly baron’s son from a poorly classified family was not a suitable choice for a viscount’s daughter.

Crispin sucked a frigid gulp into his lungs, the taste of brine rolling off the churning North Sea and bringing little comfort this day.

This circumstance wasn’t what he’d anticipated four years ago when his father won an aging Northumberland manse on a risky bet at Epsom, the only kind of wager the baron involved himself with. The medieval fortress bordered the Willoughby family’s estate, a verdant plot they’d inhabited for centuries. Despite the mad dash to the north, a move necessitated by dwindling finances, Northumberland had been a revelation for Crispin. The sting of salty air striking his face, a pantry filled with fresh local produce, country lanes he could travel without fearing a knife being placed in his back, the stink and squalor of London miles upon miles away.

As for his neighbor…

Thirteen to Crispin’s sage fifteen, Cece had already crafted a tenacious reputation in the local village. The first time he’d seen her had knocked him silly. Sporting a pair of ripped trousers, her ginger tresses trailing down her back like strands set aflame, she’d displayed a bearing similar to the wild lads he’d run with in London. Sensing his presence, she’d glanced over her shoulder, given him a knowing smirk, and let the arrow she was holding punch directly through the center of her target .

That, as they say, had been that.

Two nights later, when they’d been formally introduced at a country party—her boisterousness hidden beneath a snug chignon that didn’t suit and a stunning ivory gown that did—he’d been set adrift across turbulent waters for good.

As women who knew they’d hooked a man but good tended to do, she’d led him on a merry chase. While dancing circles around her in a mostly prudent manner, Crispin had grown into Northumberland’s most celebrated charmer. The ability to spin a story, change a mind, or win a disagreement without a drop of blood being spilled was quite a handsome skill in the temperamental regions close to Scotland. Shockingly, once he overcame his childhood stutter and asthmatic wheeze, he couldn’t seem to keep his mouth shut. Last winter, for instance, he’d convinced a public house full of drunken chaps to jump in the Tyne for an invigorating midnight swim.

While he stood, grinning, from the shore.

He tucked away the seasoned part of him crafted on city streets. Northumberland didn’t require ruthlessness, although he could be ruthless. Crispin preferred solving problems using charisma and his remarkably nimble mind. Proclaiming yourself the smartest individual in the room, even if you were, put people off.

Only dullards didn’t realize this.

Crispin Jasper Sinclair, heir to a ragged barony, was no dullard.

Shivering beneath the only greatcoat he owned, a cast-off of his father’s that was years out of fashion and tattered at the cuffs, Crispin waited. Patience was a gift he possessed in spades.

By Hades, he’d stay until he had a bloody word with her.

The second her father escorted their guests from the parlor, leveling a vicious look at his eldest daughter on the way out, Cece turned to the window, having known all along he was there. Of course, she had. She gave her knees a hard squeeze, then shoved to her feet, and crossed to him. His heart chimed in dull beats against his ribs because hers was the walk of a soul heading to the gallows. She halted before him and, with a quick glance thrown over her shoulder, went to her knees to level their gazes. Even in a crisis, she never backed down.

Working the rusted metal latch free, she opened the window enough to allow her scent to tangle with his senses. He’d never known her to be absent from the fragrance of orange blossoms. Behind her ears, between her breasts, at her wrist.

He’d tried them all, tasted them all.

Seeing where his mind had gone, the stubborn pleat he adored settled between her brows. Cece’s eyes were the color of wilted grass this morn when he preferred them dark and smoky from his touch. “You must leave, Cris. Now, today . My father is furious, my mother more so. Go home, or better yet, go to London until the ceremony is over and done with. Stay with that cousin of yours, the shifty one you like so much. My family isn’t going to stop until it’s done, until I’m married to that horrid Edgerly. My father threatened to revoke my sister’s chance at a Season next year if I don’t comply. He’ll force her to marry someone worse. He gave me names of men he would consider appropriate, and they’re unspeakable. It’s safer if you’re nowhere near me. Earls have power in this country, more than we can fight.”

He palmed the rough stone bordering the window ledge, his lungs caught in a familiar and embarrassing twist. He held the breath until he was certain a cough wasn’t going to spill out atop his words. His asthma wasn’t going to be the last thing she recalled about him. “So, you’re going to go through with it.”

When, of course, she was going through with it.

Crispin’s offer of marriage, rushed and with nothing behind it, less than nothing, wasn’t a feasible option for the daughter of a viscount. The Willoughby’s weren’t a respected family, but meager sons of faithless barons didn’t waltz into society and seize the eligible women—even if the woman in question was found in a compromising position. Furthermore, Cece had a younger sister to worry about, the main reason for selfless choices. She and her sister, Rose, were close, and ruining her family for her own sake wasn’t like Cece at all.

He supposed he’d merely wanted her to tell him to his face.

Cece gave him a defeated study, her upper lip quivering. She reached, then pulled back before she touched his bruised face. “Who did this to you?”

Crispin dusted his hand over his aching cheekbone. He blinked the only eye he could; the right was swollen shut. “My father isn’t any happier about the situation. The difference is, yours uses words to persuade while mine uses his fists. Men who’ve crawled from the gutter don’t actually crawl that far from it despite useless titles conferred due to military service. We’re only able to milk my grandfather’s relationship with King George II for so long before the well runs dry. A return to balance, some in the ton would claim. I’m not considered good enough for you, minx, even by my own family.”

“I’ve ruined us both,” she whispered, the first hint of true grief showing on her face.

Love for her whispered through Crispin in pulsing strokes. If she cried, a deed he’d only witnessed as they lay curled around each other in her grand tester bed, he was going to climb through her window and damn them all. If the dimple in her left cheek entered the conversation, he would be a goner. She’d best hide it.

“ I ruined us,” he vowed, when in actuality, he’d said no to her impassioned advances for going on a year. The hardest feat of his life—until it wasn’t hard in the slightest. Months of heated kisses and ardent caresses could only lead to doom for a young man as desperate for her as he was. Ultimately, a piece of clothing was removed, and his hand made its way beneath her skirts, hers sneaking inside his trousers. Then…

Doom. Glorious, spellbinding doom.

She’d promised they would survive the encounter, and he’d believed her.

“London,” he whispered, searching for any indication to stay in Northumberland when it appeared she was refusing to fight for them. “Is that what you’re telling me to do? Go back from where I came and leave you to Edgerly?”

“ Yes ,” she whispered, sinking his heart like a stone. “If you stay, I won’t be able to do what I must. I’ll run to you in the dead of the night, and all will truly be lost. My sister’s chances destroyed. You can’t save me from this, but I can save her .”

Crispin glanced at his muddy boots to get away from her probing gaze. He imagined slamming his fist into the brick and howling out his anguish. Imagined what he’d do if he had a brother or sister to save. A dream because he had almost no family. No siblings, his mother long gone, his father…

He swallowed hard, palming his chest, pushing back the ache. It’s time to grow up, Cris, right now. Show her you can.

He had opportunities. Skills he hadn’t told her about. The desperate sort of talents one acquires after growing up two streets over from the roughest slum in the city. His shifty cousin, Arthur, was absurdly connected—strange that this is who Cece thought he should go to for help. The two years he and his father had lived with him before coming to Northumberland had indeed been interesting ones. Arthur had told him many times to look him up when he finally had enough of his father’s abuse, that he had prime arrangements with higher ups for a chap who looked like a gentleman but wasn’t. Who could pick a lock with his eyes closed and was, perhaps, the keenest shot in England. He’d reasoned Crispin’s pale complexion and slight asthmatic wheeze were grand subterfuges. Disguises in a natural sort of sense.

Decided, he caught her gaze. “Fine,” he whispered, unable to add another word.

She inhaled a full breath, lifting those gorgeous breasts he’d suckled beneath her modest bodice, this day a dreary shade of cream her mother had no doubt selected for her. Cece preferred jewel tones, crimson and gold and deep blue like the sea. Colors matching her spirit. His fingertips tingled inside moist kidskin as he struggled to contain the impulse to reach for her. Crispin understood, on the cruelest day in the cruelest spot in England, that despite his broken heart, he’d never forget her.

But he would do what she asked of him until he drew his last.

At least, at the time, he believed he would.

“Leave me, leave this. Leave your nightmare of a father in the manse across the way. Leave it all .” She gestured to them with a tightly drawn fist. Back and forth, back and forth with her fierce breaths. “We’re a lifetime too late. The world we inhabit won’t allow for dreams. You know this. Women have few choices, and sometimes, unseen men have fewer.”

He gripped the frame to keep her from closing the window. “I won’t be around to protect you. You’ve got to stop the mischief-making. Promise me, minx, or I won’t be able to leave.”

A rosy flush spilled across her cheeks. But there was ire beneath it, sturdy as the stone beneath his hand. “I never asked you to protect me.”

He clenched his jaw, his own anger brewing. Rage was rare—but poisonous when it hit. Proof positive that Sinclair blood pulsed through his veins. He’d hidden this from her, the only thing about himself he’d hidden. “Promise me, right this bloody minute , or I march to your front door and announce myself while they nibble on crumpets and wreck your future. I’ll destroy this entire setup in seconds flat, create the biggest scandal England has ever seen. I have base compulsions racing beneath the surface that are innate to my heritage. Don’t make me reveal them. You might not like what you see.”

Crispin needn’t remind her she had base compulsions racing beneath the surface, too. A unique ability combined with an appetite for adventure that set her apart from any female he’d ever known. Perhaps someone in her family had once been a pirate.

She’d be a proper delinquent in another life, in another locale, and no one but him knew it.

Cece swallowed hard, tossing a last look over her shoulder. Her ginger strands dazzled in the dull lamplight, the fiery color beckoning to him. Her eyes when they met his were closer to what he desired—a murky, emerald green. He trusted this color. Mostly. Only a girl who couldn’t entirely be trusted would be able to steal his heart. “No more misconduct. No more schemes. Not as long as I’m married.”

He recognized the catch in her pledge. Edgerly wasn’t a young man, and she’d outlive her spouse by decades if the gods were with her. Though, once Cece had children—which made Crispin’s stomach positively ache to imagine—she’d turn into another dull society chit. There was no help for it. Many independent women before her had been broken by the system.

In any case, how many countesses went around forging signatures like they’d been born to the trade?

The end of their relationship in plain view, they stared, gazes misty, so close yet a thousand miles apart .

Before he could utter another word—plead with her to find him someday, to never forget him, to leave with him, now , to let him love her as he longed to—she secured the window latch with a decisive pop. Dragged a knuckle beneath each eye to vanquish her emotions and turned away.

Crispin watched her rally. Shoulders back, spine rigid. A smooth stroke over one of those stiff chignons he loathed, a shake of her skirt, then a departure befitting a future countess. Damned if he wasn’t in awe of her daring while he stood there shivering like a lovesick lad.

Because love him or not, Constance Willoughby exited his life without a backward glance.